The result helped Force India reduce the gap with close rival and sixth-placed Sauber to 27 points as none of the Swiss team's driver finished inside top-10.

Sergio Perez was 11th while Kamuyi Kobayasahi retired after an accident.

With four races to go and home Grand Prix next in India, Force India would look to continue the good show at home.

"That race was a lot of fun and it's great to get such a mega result. It wasn't easy though, and for most of the race I had the Lotus of Romain [Grosjean] pushing me and some great battles," Hulkenberg said.

"I think the best moment of the race was the fight with Lewis (Hamilton) and Romain in the final stint when I got ahead of both of them in turn four. They both went to the inside so I just saw the opportunity to use the outside line and made the move work. That certainly put a big smile on my face. So a very positive day, an amazing job by the whole team and lots of positives to take as we head to India for our home race," he said.

Paul di Resta, who finished outside the points brackets for the second consecutive race, said the tyre strategy did not work for him.

"We expected the supersoft to be a better race tyre and so we saved it for the second stint. As it happened, the soft tyres did not last long enough at the start of the race and when I switched to the supersofts they started graining straight away. So we were not on the ideal strategy and that impacted the whole race," he said.